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DVD criminal fails to pay back £110k owed

An accountant who ran a counterfeit goods racket worth hundreds of thousands of pounds from his house in Wolverhampton has failed to pay back a penny of the £110,200 he was ordered to by a court, it emerged today.

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Zimbabwe-born Webster Kutsawa launched a firm dealing with 6,500 fake DVDs a month from China.

He also sold bogus Slendertone slimming aids.

The 42-year-old, who has a Masters degree in Business Administration, sold the counterfeit goods as genuine items via the internet.

He was jailed for 20 months in October last year and was last month ordered to pay back £90,000, as well as £22,200 costs within 21 days or face an extra 22 months in prison.

Peter Calvert, head of Wolverhampton City Council's Trading Standards department, said today that the money had not been paid back. He said Kutsawa would face a breach of that order at Birmingham Magistrates Court on Thursday.

The father-of-three, whose family home was in Staines, Middlesex, previously admitted 10 charges of possessing fake DVDs, three of selling them, six of importing them and two charges of possessing fake Slendertone equipment.

These were sold through a firm called Egudo, based in Glengarry Gardens, Finchfield. In September, he appeared at Wolverhampton Crown Court to face a Proceeds of Crime hearing .

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